Cloud City Playset (Sears Exclusive)

The last in my series of posts on the "Sears Exclusive" cardboard playsets is this one - the Cloud City Playset. 

Of course, it was just another cheap vehicle for Sears to sell its exclusive action figures - in this case, Han Bespin, Dengar, Ugnaught, and Lobot - but upon examination the playset reveals itself as a pretty clever piece of papercraft.

 

Box sides - as typical with the Sears cardboard playsets, while the box front had amazing art direction, the sides were ho-hum with no further play scenarios illustrated.

Now we get to the goodies. The cardboard playset comes in two pieces, the larger of which is actually die-cut in places to allow the 3D setup.

Multiple dates on the copyright notice is... unusual. Also the callout to 20th Century Fox is seldom seen in Kenner notices, as they usually reference General Mills Fun Group, Kenner, or other affiliated entities. Interesting.

The reverse sides of the pieces are undecorated.

And here it is set up, probably for the first and final time. It does look rather amazing, but the cardboard tabs are super fragile and I don't want to find out how much assembly and disassembly 40-year old cardboard can take before disintegrating. So I'll have to make the most of it!

Detail shot with the carbon freeze chamber (centre), Cloud City dining room (left), and torture chamber (right). The litho on these pieces is really good.

Stormtroopers about to torture Han Solo.

Dining room awaits the appearance of Vader.

Here's the box art tableau. Fortunately my set came with the full complement of pegs as well (seven - six for the base and one spare).

Some closeups of figures in the environment.

 

What on Earth is Dengar doing in Cloud City?

Now some more imaginative play scenarios. "We would be honored if you would join us."

"I love you." "I know."

"What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me." "The Empire will compensate you if he dies. Put him in!"

 

The playset is fairly complete, missing only the instructions (and insert?). Above you can see the box that contained the included four mini-action figures, and the small bag of pegs.

The three Sears playsets (this one, the original Cantina Adventure set, and the Rebel Command Center) command ridiculous prices for what they are - essentially a few flimsy bits of cardboard and a few plastic pegs in a cardboard box. Remarkably, the Cloud City set was the most expensive (for me) of the three. However, I would put this set and the Cantina set far above the Rebel Command Centre in terms of coolness. I just love the creativity involved in the papercraft of this set, and the litho is really well done. For such a compact playset, this one includes a good variety of Cloud City environments, missing only the gantry location of the Vader/Skywalker lightsaber duel, and maybe the landing pad. Too bad, but there's a limit here I guess. It's just too bad there weren't any other Cloud City playsets produced for action figures in the vintage era. This one is pretty cool though and the box looks epic, so colourful and well done.